Statistician Career

statistician-500Statisticians employ statistical methods to collect and analyze data. If you decide to be a statistician, you can help solve problems using statistics in business, engineering, healthcare, or other many other fields.

As a statistician, you might decide what information needs to be gathered to address a specific problem and then find ways to collect the data you need. You might design surveys, come up with experiments, or create opinion polls to collect this data. Once you have gathered the data, you would then analyze and interpret the data and write a report to share your conclusions.

Statistician Career Snapshot

Statisticians may work for the government, research and development companies, financial organizations, universities or consulting companies. If you choose to be a statistician, you may work with other professionals to set up surveys and research projects. You would probably work full time.

Further details on a career as a statistician are listed below (statistics from the May 2015 Bureau of Labor Statistics and Onet Online):

$80,110

is the average salary for statisticians per year.

34%

increase in employment between 2014 and 2024.

48%

have a Master’s degree while 28% have a Bachelor’s degree.

Statistician Education

Most statisticians earn a master’s degree. If you choose this field, you can probably find a job with a bachelor’s degree as well and can opt to go on for a doctoral degree in the future.

Statistician Job Duties

As a statistician, you would need to learn how to use specialized statistical software to analyze data. You might spend your day identifying trends and relationships found in the data or coming up with ways to check the data’s validity and explain sampling errors. You could help design software to analyze data more accurately and efficiently.

Statisticians are often called on to present the findings from their analyses. If you choose this line of work, you may need to compile written reports, tables, charts, and graphs and explain them to other people in your company.

Statistician Salaries

In May 2015, the median pay for statisticians was $80,110 according to BLS.gov statistics. If you become a statistician, you would probably earn at least $44,900 and could make up to $130,630 per year.

Statistician Job Outlook

If you’re considering a job as a statistician, your job outlook is very good. This area is projected to grow 34 percent from 2014 to 2024 due to the great deal of data generated by internet searches and social media usage. More and more organizations will rely on statistical analysis to make informed business, healthcare, and policy decisions.

Statistician Skills & Traits

Statistician Skill Set:Required Abilities:Tools Used by Statisticians:Typical Work Activities:
• Mathematics
• Critical Thinking
• Reading Comprehension
• Active Listening
• Active Learning
• Mathematical Reasoning
• Deductive Reasoning
• Inductive Reasoning
• Number Facility
• Information Ordering
• Desktop/notebook computers
• Analytical or scientific software
• Data mining software
• Development environment software
• Analyzing data
• Working with computers
• Processing information
• Communicating with others
• Explaining information

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